


there's parts of you already gone i can never revive

by Anonymous



Series: a feeling's not a thing you own [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Depression, Eating Disorders, Gen, Gore, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 09:09:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20739758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Patton is gone.Deceit is going to have to learn how to be Ethan, instead.





	there's parts of you already gone i can never revive

**Author's Note:**

> okay babes and children who i cannot stop from reading this, but seriously, this is a vent fic for a grown-up non-binary pal, time for the content warnings!!!
> 
> suicidal thoughts!!! eating disorders, with a binge-eating episode referenced, and discussions of weight gain and fatphobia as a result of the aforementioned weight gain!!! ambiguous character death!!! remus being gorey and gross!!! everyone being sympathetic, because they're!!! all!!! the same!!! person!!!!!!

“Once upon a time, there was a singer. All they knew how to do was sing. Sure, they could walk, and talk, and all of the basic things, but all that sparked life in them was singing. They’d sing all the time, no matter what, because it was how their heart sustained itself. Then they got throat cancer, and the doctors said that they’d never be able to sing again. They went home, smiling all the way, and shot themself in the head as soon as they were alone.”

Thomas sighs, rolling over to look at Roman. “Is there a point to this story?”

Roman grins. It’s a sick thing that would look worrying on Remus’s face. It makes Ethan’s stomach churn.

“Once upon a time, there was a prince. He had a kingdom that he ruled fairly, and kindly, but he still wasn’t perfect. Taxes were too high, but there was never enough money to pay for hospitals and schools. The prince went without the finery that befitted those of his rank. He lived in peasant-like squalor. His people, furious at how terrible a life they were living, rose up against him. They made their way to his castle, past all the remaining guards, to find the prince lying on his bedroom floor, face-down, with his own bloody sword in his throat.”

“Yep, there’s a point,” says Thomas. “The point is to make me feel like garbage.”

Ethan clears this throat. “Roman, could you do something more productive?”

A look appears on Roman’s face, like he’s looking at some mess on the bottom of his shoe. “I’m trying to generate ideas. It’s my entire reason for existence, you know?”

“I’m aware. However, your ideas tend to be more…” Ethan bites his lip. “Light-hearted than this.”

Roman huffs out a laugh and gestures to the clear coffin at the foot of Thomas’s bed. The thing that looks like Patton but isn’t lies there, just as still as the day it appeared.

“I think you’ve forgotten that there’s not much heart here,” he says, then gestures to Ethan himself. “Not much light, either.”

Raising a brow, Ethan asks, “Are you implying that my presence is causing you to discuss darkly-themed stories, rather than your usual fare?”

“Well, I’m not saying it isn’t!” The things that Roman leaves unsaid, the lies of omission, fill Deceit’s – Ethan’s, he has to be Ethan for Thomas – mouth. They taste like expensive chocolate cake, heavy and rich and sickly, with an unending undercurrent of guilt sticking in his throat, so he has to swallow several times before eating another spoonful.

That thought is… Rather visceral. Has Remus caused this, with impulsive thoughts and a desire to act on them?

“I should go check on Remus,” he says, rubbing his temple. “Please, Roman, don’t exacerbate Thomas’s issues further.”

Roman runs a hand through Thomas’s hair, settling at the nape of his neck. Thomas, for his part, seems to curl up against Roman’s chest, tight and close.

“We’ll be fine,” he says, waving his foot dismissively, as he would wave a hand if he had one that was free. “Go and make sure my brother hasn’t burnt down the kitchen. Mindscape or otherwise.”

The door clicks shut behind Ethan, and, as he begins to walk away, he hears Roman’s voice, soft and crackling, as if he was being played from an old VHS tape.

“Once upon a time, there was a greedy boy who wanted everything. He wanted everything to be his, no matter how little he needed it. He ate more than he needed to; he spoke more than he needed to. He clung to the people who had given them his friendship as if he could conjoin himself to them all, and absorb all their goodness. And he did that. He destroyed his friends, turning them into lifeless husks, but he still wanted more. He wanted the world to love him. He was awful and evil and he could never settle for second-best, because he had lost all of his inherent worth.”

“And then he killed himself?” Thomas’s voice asks, almost silent with how it was muffled by the door, and, presumably, Roman’s shirt.

Roman’s voice is still loud, even as Deceit walks away. He sounds so careful and patient, like a parent teaching their child to read, when he replies, “And then he killed himself.”

* * *

In the kitchen, Ethan doesn’t find Remus, but he does find Virgil, sitting on the countertop and staring at an open box of cereal.

“Are you eating that?” asks Ethan.

Virgil, verbose as always, shrugs. Well, at least it’s not a lie.

“Have you eaten anything today?” he asks, instead.

Virgil shakes his head. Somewhere, someone in the Mindscape is thinking about Dodie, because Ethan starts to hear the faint piano notes of one of her songs. He can’t put his finger on which one, though.

“When was the last time you ate?” he tries.

Ethan hisses silently through his teeth as Virgil begins counting on his fingers.

“Five days ago,” he says.

“Please tell me you had something after Logan made the three of you eat some vegetables,” says Ethan, “because that was for the _explicit purpose_ of making sure that you all still kept to Thomas’s normal mealtimes.”

Virgil rolls his eyes and pokes at the cereal box. It wobbles with a rustle, but not enough to spill. “_Sure_.”

Sherbet sarcasm rises in Ethan’s throat, fizzing like bile. “How grateful of you, to acknowledge one of the few parts of Thomas who’s actually trying to function.”

Virgil honestly growls at that, like a puppy trying to be intimidating. “I’m _Anxiety_. I’d say I’m doing my job pretty well right now, unlike _some people_.”

“I may be Deceit, but I’m Self-Preservation first and foremost,” he replies, hoping that his tone is far cooler than his head right now. “You are currently causing possible harm to Thomas by doing your level best to avoid food.”

Virgil pokes the cereal box again. It rustles even more loudly.

Ethan continues, “You are operating on faulty logic.” Then, in a sing-song, he calls, “_Logan_!”

Thomas’s Logic takes a second to appear in the kitchen. For a second, Ethan thinks he’s wearing a cat onesie, but he blinks, and Logan is in his normal attire, if a little more mussed than usual.

“What seems to be the problem?” Logan’s normally crisp voice sounds softer, in some way, than usual.

Turning to Virgil, Ethan says, “Would you care to explain when it was that you last ate to Logan?”

Another cereal box poke. Virgil looks up, his gaze going from Logan for a few seconds, to Ethan. He licks his lips and teeth, mouth open slightly, then flippantly says, “Nope.”

Logan approaches a little closer, before stopping still, as if Virgil would pounce on him like a starving beast if he got any closer. Or, maybe, it was out of concern for Virgil’s mental wellbeing.

“Have you eaten at all since that day?” he softly queries.

Virgil shakes his head, his gaze lowered. His cheeks seem pinker.

Pulling on his hoodie, he says, “Thomas has gained… Quite a few pounds.”

Ethan begins reciting the same thing he’s heard plenty of times before. “A person’s worth is not quantified by how little they weigh, or how thin they are-”

“Shut it, Deceit.” Virgil’s tone switches from a mumble to acerbic venom in an instant. Ethan’s honestly kind of impressed.

“Virg-”

Even Logan is cut off.

“It doesn’t work to think about this shit logically, because there’s nothing logical about fatphobia, _yeah_, I _know_.” Ethan would hesitate to call Virgil’s voice a hiss or a growl. It’s something between the two, aggressive and bitter. “This is just how I feel though, and I feel like _shit_. Thomas is always too tired to make proper meals, and he barely has an appetite for pizza. That slows his metabolism down. I’m anxious, not stupid. So when he eats, and we’re living on processed crap now, his body thinks he’s starving, so it stores all the excess that we don’t use, because we’re too busy lazing around doing nothing, as fat.”

Logan opens his mouth as if to speak, but Virgil interrupts again.

“Then it was me and Remus, and I can barely remember anything except feeling fucking _humiliated_.” His voice doubles over on itself, a stormy tempest on his tongue. “I should’ve been smarter, but no, I just had to _let myself go_ like an _idiot_, and I let Thomas down, because it made everything shut up for once. And the worst thing is that I already want to do it again, because it _worked_.”

“That would be your reward centre trying to find a way to diminish your anxiety,” says Logan, like he’s trying to calm down an angry kitten. “Your mind is trying to recreate-”

It’s the wrong thing to say, because Virgil throws the cereal box, screaming, “I _am_ Anxiety!”

Frosties land in the folds of Ethan’s capelet and hat. With them, they bring the desire to snack on them, which is only tempered by Virgil’s crisis, and the thought that it might be a little insensitive to eat while that wonderful traitor of a Side is having a crisis over food.

Logan states, “You are _Virgil_. A part of Thomas that encapsulates his fight-or-flight reflex, his enjoyment of My Chemical Romance, and, yes, his anxiety. However, your anxiety stems from poorly-managed fears that have been left to fester. I’m sorry about that, because in our different ways of dealing with Thomas’s issues, Roman, P-Patton, and I all ignored you instead of trying to help.”

Ethan didn’t miss the full-body flinches of either Logan or Virgil when Patton’s name was mentioned. He decides to forget that, along with how his heart seemed to skip a beat.

“I am going to try to help you now, if you will let me,” says Logan, impossibly gently, but firmly enough that there is no room for argument. “I would like to metaphorically run through some cognitive distortions with you, to try and get to the root of your particular problems.”

Virgil murmurs something.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Logan says. “Could you repeat that?”

Honestly, Ethan didn’t really catch what Virgil said, either, but he can make a pretty good guess.

It’s confirmed when he hears Virgil say, still quietly, like he’s ashamed of hating everyone’s favourite villain, “As long as Deceit leaves.”

Logan asks Deceit to go and find something better to do, even calling him _Ethan_ just to be polite, but it’s okay.

He’s already gone.

* * *

Remus is the hardest to find, because he’s not in Thomas’s apartment, real or imaginary. He’s in his corner of the mind that’s barely visible, let alone shaped like anything. It’s his room, like every room that the sides have, but unformed by Thomas’s surroundings. It’s not even a void. It’s just… Thoughts.

Ethan cannot wade through the ideas, because that would imply that the ideas are more solid than metaphysical. Honestly, Ethan’s not entirely certain that physical forms exist here. His essence kind of undulates in a call to Remus.

The thought of hearing a scream and then vague flashes of sights of snakes and the butchers and the butchers being butchered and a snake as a stake in a vampire’s chest and that face from the scary maze game that everyone played in middle school.

“Hi!”

Floating in the incomprehensible nothingness are Remus and Ethan, now. Both of them are sitting on squishy armchairs, soft as shaven thighs and baby hair.

Wait.

Now, only Remus is sitting on an armchair made of literal flesh, because Ethan is sitting on a plain black desk chair. Unimaginative, but much less gross.

“I have a teeny tummy now! I’m using it to practise my ventriloquism.” Remus’s voice is reedy, as always, but there’s something far more desperate in it than before. “Wanna see?”

He starts to take off his ridiculously complex and spangled shirt, but Ethan simply stops him with a , “No, thank you.”

“Virgil hates it!” Remus adds, unperturbed. “I suggested that he cut it off, like this!”

Remus begins to tear flesh from his skin. His stomach, yes, but also his cheeks, leaving two gaping holes on either side of his mouth that show off his yellowing back teeth, and the underside of his arms, which flop and stick together with flesh and blood.

“Please stop that,” says Ethan.

He spins in his chair once, and, when he is done, Remus is sitting again, just as whole as he was before.

Remus is pouting. “I’m just saying, it’s very easy to lose weight!”

“That would probably kill Thomas.”

“Probably!” Remus’s voice switches from bright to soft in one second. “Unless my brother gets to him first.”

“I’ve heard what your brother’s been saying,” Ethan sighs. “All those morose stories are _really_ doing wonders for Thomas’s wellbeing.”

“They’re not,” says Remus. “That’s his plan, though.”

Ethan’s brows furrow. “His plan?”

“I keep hearing Roman’s thoughts, if they get too close to my own, and…” Remus starts to giggle. “And Roman places all his self-worth on being funny, and entertaining, but right now, he can’t be any of those things, because everything hurts and everything sucks and it’s all horrible!”

He’s laughing, now.

“And he wants to die, because nothing’s right, and he’s a coward, and he’s too scared to try and fix things! Only, he’s such a core part of Thomas that he _can’t die_.”

“But Patton died,” says Ethan.

Remus tilts his head. “Did he?”

“Yes.”

The truth tastes like toast, covered with a thick layer of Crofters. It’s warm, and it scratches Ethan’s throat as he swallows.

He retches. Hypocritically, he hasn’t eaten enough to puke.

Patton is dead. It’s true. Thomas has no morality, and no heart. He’s just got a bunch of incompetent imbeciles running around, trying to make a functional human being and failing miserably. He’s got texts from friends that he hasn’t replied to in weeks, and he only answers the door if he ordered pizza earlier.

“We’d be better off dead, wouldn’t we?” Remus giggles wetly.

“No,” replies Deceit, slowly. “If you die, then there’s no hope of things getting better.”

“Patton is fucking dead!”

Remus screams it like it’s not the thing echoing around Ethan’s head. Patton’s dead Patton’s dead Patton’s dead. There’s no heart, no hope.

“We’ve got to keep living,” he says, but the words sound hollow, even to him.

Remus is on Ethan’s lap, knees digging into his stomach and hands gripping his shoulder and cheek.

“Why?” he hisses, wide eyes boring into Ethan’s own.

“Because there’s nothing else to do.”

Obviously, there’s at least one other thing that he could do, that both Creativities are desperately pelting his mind with. Drowning, bleeding, overdosing, walking into traffic. All of them in vivid detail. He could blow himself up, just like JD, or hang himself like Judas.

Only, well, Ethan is self-preservation. He’s the part of Thomas that lives, even when Anxiety fails. He’s the subconscious scramble of fingers to loosen the tightness around his neck. He’s the mirage in the desert, crawling on a few metres further in the hope of some water to quench his parched throat.

He’s truth and lies, all bundled together so that Thomas doesn’t break the moment that he sees every injustice in the world around him. He’s the thought that Thomas is a bad person, keeping him in check, and also that Thomas is a good person, letting him breathe. Deceit is what keeps the world turning, that keeps Thomas breathing, and if he has to become a delusion of hope in order to do his job, then he’ll be the best fucking delusion the world has ever seen.

* * *

Thomas and Roman watch, transfixed, as Patton shifts in his sleep.

His eyes open.

**Author's Note:**

> if i fail to call the next part of this, if it happens, "our love is like jesus but worse" you need to virtual-slap me
> 
> isn't it great how my current issues can be tracked through this, and how my immediate way to get to know new sets of characters is to make them want to die


End file.
